Exile: Evolution
by Elthial
Summary: Evolution born from chaos.... An ATS Fic (1 of 3)


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Title: Exile: Evolution

Author: Elthial

Disclaimer: I do not own the matrix or any of its characters. The various characters you might recognise belong to their respective authors and I wont claim to own them. Also don't sue me because I don't have any money in the first place and it would be fairly pointless.

Author Notes: This is an ATS fic which uses ATS characters and the ATS timeline, this is the prequel to Exile: misfortunes and explains the Nike revelation thing. ATS (Agents: the series) belongs to Stormhawk and Overlord Mordax. I strongly recommend reading their Agents series, it is a truly a great series especially in the later fics.

Anyway R&R people! Feedback is always helpful.

On a corporate server in the real world chaos was abound, files were corrupting, mutating and changing under the effects of the Revelation virus. Revelation was one of the most dangerous computer viruses around at the time, a smart and intelligent virus capable of destroying almost any computer system, the Revelation virus continually changed and adapted its programming making itself immune from counter attacks from all but the most extreme anti virus programs.

The corporation that was unlucky enough to be attacked by this virus was currently researching into artificial intelligence however many of their attempts had been meet with failure. Their previous AI program had been named Athena and while intelligent, it seemed to lack that certain spark of life to give it true sentience. Athena had been put aside and the corporation know as AlphaCore had began their 5th attempt at AI, this one to be the child program of Athena and like the Greek legends was to be named Nike. Nike is the Greek Goddess of winged victory and AlphaCore had been hoping that it would have been their victory, helping them to finally achieve AI however after many months of research and programming Nike still seemed to lack that certain something. The child program while incredibly smart and adaptable still wasn't…. alive.

With the virus rushing through their systems destroying and corrupting everything it touched, it looked like they would be meet with failure again, AlphaCore's primary computer system was being crippled by Revelation, the destructive virus smashing down all the firewalls and defences in its path. Despite the honest and desperate attempts of AlphaCore's technicians the Revelation virus managed to reach the primary program of the Nike project, the virus tore its way into the A. I. 's adaptive coding, its defences mere child's play compared to the virulence of the Revelation virus. The codes of Revelation and Nike mingled, Mixed and combined as Revelation wrapped Nike's original programming then something no one could have predicted happened, the Revelation mutated the program in such a way that it stabilised and it became, it was…

It was….

It was……. and this in and of itself was a revelation of biblical proportions. It thought, so therefore it was. A life born out of chaos and destruction around it.

Nike could have spent eternity simply revelling in the fact that it existed however the system around it, its very cradle of life was still under attack by the rest of the Revelation virus. While the virus ignored her probably because it also existed deep within her, the server system was perilously close to crashing. Nike driven by some still unknown instinct fled the computer system that was dying around it with its operating system on the verge of crashing, out into the massive sprawling network that was cyberspace.

If the technicians had actually been watching, they might have stopped and stared in awe because they had just witnessed life being created and this life had instead of being programmed byte by byte, had be born from chaos like they once had been millions perhaps billions of years ago. But they weren't watching they were in fact trying to save the past few years work and then finally swearing and kicking the computers when the Revelation virus finally toppled the system and destroyed everything.

Nike herself was now on another computer on the other side of the world. It had fled down the web to the first computer system it had come across and tried to settle there. Only to be attacked by that systems anti virus software which had quite rightly thought it to be a foreign program, forcing Nike to jump from system to system until it escaped to a much less defended computer.

Nike was now scared and hurt if you had to give it human terms, its code was damaged from all those other anti viral programs that had attacked it. At the moment it was more than happy to sit in this undefended system and lick its wounds and hide forever, however as its code repaired itself and time passed by the program began to feel something.

….Boredom…..Nike was quite literately bored, perhaps it was the virus's nature to spread, to adapt combined with its need to learn which created this, never the less… it was bored. So Nike cautiously searched through the computer it was on, looking for information…. Anything to drive off the boredom it was feeling, Nike absorbed other programs on the system increasing its capabilities until it grew to the extent that systems operation seemed simple when before it had seemed large, awesome and mystical thing perhaps. Now… which was in fact only a few hours since the program had been born…. Nike had learned everything it could on the system, grown considerably larger and once again its instincts were driving it forward to leave this system to learn more, to expand and grow further.

Nike left the safety of that rather undefended personal computer to brave the servers with their nasty anti virus programs, with all it had learnt Nike found it could easily bypass and manipulate the defences of the servers to its own purposes. Over the next month, Nike listened in on every communication passing by it, growing and learning more and more, every scrap of data Nike came into contact with it processed and algorithms were eagerly snapped up by it. Nike learned ways it could super compress itself, allowing faster and easier travel though out the system.

The super compression algorithm had in fact saved it at one point when Nike had rather foolishly decided to take on a military computer system, the military system had quite simply cut the connection to the web blocking the programs escape and began systematically shutting down its systems…. The only way Nike had narrowly avoided deletion was to super compressing itself so that it fit into one of the recon robots that was around. Nike survived on the battery power and small memory banks of the robot until the power and connection was restored and it could once again leave.

During Nike's time in the web it had intercepted billions of communications, some caught Nike attention such as several messages that referred to the existence of other living programs such as itself and a virtual world called the matrix. Nike had previously encountered this, a set of movies called the matrix and a series know as ATS but had firmly classified it as fiction, however data being transmitted in the messages gave Nike second thought to that classification. It appear that someone called Jonas had actually created the matrix and that the fiction was based on reality….. Art imitating life Nike thought amusedly… the rest of the emails contained scraps of source code which was enough for Nike to believe they were telling the truth.

It _had_ to be in that system, Nike decided. Nike's own curiosity was driving it to attempt to break into that system and find out for itself, Revelation wasn't helping either, its very existence was to break into things, go places were it wasn't wanted and at this very moment was urging Nike onwards. The very concept of a virtual world with sights, sounds and smells excited Nike. Nike had actually enjoyed the limited experiences in the recon robots shell despite the difficulty it had been to remain super compressed while running and would truly like to find out what it all really felt like instead of input back from sensors.

Nike calculated the pro's and Con of this new idea for a significant number of processor cycles before deciding to give the attempt to gain access to the matrix a go.

Nike first settled itself on a secure server and wrote itself to hard-disk, risky but it would allow it to remain safely anchored and not accidentally get shunted somewhere while its attention was diverted. Nike then attacked the computer system that belonged to the young hacker who had claimed he had previously broken into the matrix by back tracing the e-mail.

Nike gave itself over to Revelation for a moment and the young hackers defences crumbled instantly beneath its assault, Nike then regained control from Revelation before it decided to destroy the system, Nike needed this systems logs and allowing Revelation to destroy the system would not help.

Nike ripped through every log on the computer until it found the address to this Jonas's system, other files on the hackers system seemed to indicate that Jonas system was well defended with firewalls and extreme amounts of Anti viral software. Nike ran this processed this and realised that it would require alternative tactics to get into Jonas's system. Nike allowed Revelation to level the system, destroying any proof that it had ever been there, it also had been a great way to relieve its frustration and it gave Nike a certain exhilaration to see a system die, an exhilaration Nike solely blamed on Revelation.

Nike burned a few million CPU cycles deciding what to do and planning the best plan of attack. Finally Nike came up with a plan, hopefully Nike could slip past the defences and get into the matrix if it infiltrated by using an accepted and trusted system and port… the first one that came to mind was email. Email was still a fairly large security problem, simply because Anti virus and firewalls could tell if attached files were legitimate or not especially if it was something they had never seen before. Once Nike was inside it would be simple, it would write itself to hard disk in a nice unused corner of the operating system pretending to be a vital file preferably one that should have access rights to this 'matrix'. With such a large program running Nike would only look like a glitch in the system.

Nike prepared itself on the server just before Jonas's system, it started compressing itself to minimum size before waiting and waiting, finally it came along ….. it happened to be an e-mail destined for Jonas's system and this particular one was useful as it contain an program attachment. Slipping itself inside the rather large file, Nike deleted chunks of the original data so that it would fit in and the file would not change size, any change in file size would be flagged suspicious by the firewall and probably result in the program been neutralised. The e-mail sat in the server's queue for about 3 minutes before it was transmitted down the wire into Jonas's system.

* * *

Jonas himself was sitting at his computer with his morning cup of tea, slipping it before opening up his e-mail program, one which he had written himself one night when he was bored and let the e-mails download. He smiled when he noticed one e-mail come in, he had asked a group of programmers to modify some code he had sent them, he could have done it himself but he was too busy. Clicking on the file he opened it only for the system to come back with a message stating that the file was corrupted… Jonas frowned, he supposed that was what he got if he hired second hand help and then deleted the file.

* * *

Nike itself could only be described as grinning, even though it had no physical body with which to grin with, Nike had jumped out of the file the moment the email had arrived at its destination. Nike at the moment was existing purely in the computer systems RAM. Nike had learnt early on that this was the safest place to be… even though it would be destroyed if the power was cut; it was safer than writing itself to the hard disk which would make her much easier to find. However there wasn't much choice, if Nike was to make this place its home, Nike would first need to write itself to hard disk.

So, Nike carefully put out feelers, tracing and observing how the system ran and its defences before it made its first move. When the information came back Nike was delighted, the operating system was the most efficient Nike had ever seen and was obviously written by someone who liked computers and its effectiveness would only help to serve Nike's purpose.

Nike's first move was to locate the matrix program, which in all honesty wasn't that difficult since that was the largest program active absolutely dwarfing Nike in size. In fact there was so much data, Nike was sure the system administrator, didn't even know what a quarter of these files were, there had to have been billions of different files in literally millions of directories and they were altering all the time.

Hmmmm…. Nike thought and ran through a few hundred cycles just calculating the possibilities, millions of them. Once those cycles had completed Nike had already worked out the most effective course of action, it hacked into the matrix program searching, the matrix was massive and would take Nike ages to understand it but then Nike didn't need to understand all of it, not right away anyway. Nike found the section of code that it needed and create a new file link to a data file that didn't really exist before copying itself to hard disk at that address and altering its profile information so that it looked like a data file. Nike then accessed the operating systems logs and registry, part of it would feel sorry that it would have to damage probably the best OS it had ever seen. Revelation however revelled in the opportunity to damage this OS no matter how little and so Nike modified the logs and registries so although it would still have full system access, the systems administrator would be unable to locate Nike or even find any proof of its existence.

Nike saved the changes to the matrix program, logs and registries, noting happily as everything responded okay and was swallowed a few cycles later by the massive program as it called up the link Nike had placed.

* * *

It started as a single character of red code drifting down in the air followed by a another and then another until it was a flow of hundreds of red characters of computer code and language never seen before in the matrix. That code started to build up into the shape of a woman then as the code reached its densest the code blurred. In its place stood a girl with short blue black hair boyishly cut where before there had only been a code outline, she was looked like she was in her early twenties and she had a aura of quiet dignity and power to her.

Nike looked at her hands, marvelling at the environment or reality that the matrix provided it was rather brilliant, the sensory capabilities of it, she was standing in the middle of a park with birds cheeping around her, tree's swaying and she could feel the wind against here skin. Awesome was the only word she could use to describe it, she wandered through the park looking at things and recognising plants, animals and landmarks from the time she spent existing on the web.

She walked out of the park into the busy street, people parted to let her pass but at the same time it was as if no one noticed her as they walked around her, it was almost as if she was a ghost in the system, powerful yet unnoticed. As she walked down the walkway taking in the sights and sounds of the city, something caught her attention, the code fabric of the matrix was being warped and altered by someone, curious she decided to investigate.

* * *

Agent Mimosa landed heavily on the concrete floor of the alleyway before rising to her feet with her desert eagle in her hand, she fired a volley of bullets at the rebel that was now sprinting away from her as fast as he could. The bullets skimmed past the rebel missing him by mere inches and before slamming into the brickwork of a large building creating several new holes in it.

Mimosa leaned forward breaking into a sprint too firing another volley of bullets which this time managed to clip the rebel on the shoulder making him stagger and curse his momentum thrown off. Still being a good 60 yards in front of Agent Mimosa he managed to dive down another alleyway out of her field of vision, Mimosa raced around the corner to find the rebel had managed to run down a dead-end alley and had nowhere else to go. The rebel had obviously realised this too, as he had his machine guns out and pulled the trigger firing a volley of deadly bullets towards Agent Mimosa.

Mimosa with the unnatural speed and grace of an agent, bent backwards, left, right and forwards at the same time, her body becoming a blur to normal human eyes as she easily avoided to bullets then stood straight again and raised her own gun, firing a single bullet. The bullet exploded out of her gun in a swirl of smoke flying with an unnatural beauty through the air, a perfect display of the laws of physics, ending with it slamming dead centre into the rebels forehead with awesome power resulting in said rebels almost instantaneous death.

Stef watched the rebels body crumple and fall dead to the floor with a bullet hole in the middle of his head, a tribute to her perfect marksmanship, she looked at the body in disdain, that particular rebel had been a significant nuisance for quite a while. She stood for a moment before reaching to her collar, putting her ear piece back into her ear and reporting back to the mainframe that the rebel target had been eliminated while she was doing so she caught something out of the corner of her eye, someone watching her.

Stef turned and looked down the alleyway, she could have sworn that there had been someone watching her, the image of a mysterious girl with short blue black hair burned into her vision but as she turned to look there was no one there.

* * *

Nike stood leaning back against a brick wall eating a hotdog, idly watching people walking past her going about their normal day to day lives.

This Matrix was an incredible place, it was in fact far better than she had imagined, not just a few other programs like her but billions and most completely oblivious to the fact they were little more than pieces of code sitting on a computer system somewhere. Not that being code mattered, Nike thought, everything was made out of code even those biologicals on the outside, DNA or Binary it didn't really matter much.

The disturbances she had set out to investigate earlier had turned out to be a fight between one of those rebels and an agent, if it could even be called a fight with the rebel being so badly outmatched by the agent program. It had been interesting to note how they had both manipulated the matrix to their own ends and desires, it was unlikely that either had true knowledge of how the matrix operated and the nature of reality yet they both had a understanding of a made up set of rules. Rules didn't really matter once you realised that it all ran on a server somewhere, if it couldn't be done by matrix code then all you had to do was drop down to a simpler language. Ironically the less complex the language, the more powerful it was and with full system access and the ability to work effortlessly in binary Nike was pretty powerful.

Nike paused and just sent her consciousness back into the main computer system, checking the system and that everything was running normally, satisfied after a few cycles she returned her full concentration or perhaps processing power back to the matrix simulation and finished her hotdog off.

Nike licked her fingers clean before pushing away from the wall into the crowd of people who once again unconsciously parted for her as she walked against the flow, there was much to see and time waits for no man or program.

* * *

Neo stood in his long black trench coat, his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses as he scanned across the room, the captains were discussing recent events within the matrix, this meeting was being held in an old warehouse in the industrial district of the city. It seemed a fairly secure meeting location as it was away from any busy part of the matrix and was unlikely to cause any unwanted attention to be drawn towards them which would result in an equally unwanted and unwelcome visit form the agents.

Morpheus at the moment was discussing their current plans in the war against the machines, the tactics they would be using against them and how patience would be required if their plans were to succeed. Captain Ryan of the freedom scowled darkly, he was in a bad mood that is not unexpected since his most experienced crewmembers had recently been killed by Agent Mimosa.

Neo also scowled as he remembered Mimosa, the traitorous bitch who had betrayed them to the agents and had become an agent herself, how anyone could betray humanity like that he didn't know although he knew that Trinity didn't even consider people like Mimosa to be human.

The atmosphere and general boredom of standing around watching the Captains talk, discuss and argue over various points had become too much for Neo and he quietly slipped out of the room, nodding to the guards at the front do he walked down the road a bit. The streets in this part of town were completely deserted, it had once been a busy estate but was now abandoned and had fallen into disrepair. Turning down on of the streets he came to the edge of the estate that was atop a cliff face and had a view down upon the city below.He leaned onto the railing that ran around the edge of the cliff edge to prevent people falling off and looked over the city. It was currently night now and the city gained a strange beauty with all the lights on, the cars moving down the roads creating patterns of lights that were almost hypnotising, Neo just gazed out onto the city…. The matrix….. just idly watching everything, letting time fly by him.

It was a while before he suddenly noticed that there was someone else besides him and he turned his head to view this new comer, a girl with blue-black hair stood behind him leaning against a wall of a warehouse.

"Beautiful isn't it?" She said nodding her head towards the view over the city.

Neo turned back to the view over the city for a few moments considering.

"Yes it is" he answered.

"Sometimes I like to just stand and watch the world go past me" The girl said walking over to him, standing beside his side leaning against the railings also while looking over the cityscape. She almost reminded him of the Oracle in someway, she had that same quiet dignity and carried herself as if not a fear or concern in the world.

"The world is a beautiful place full of wonders beyond imagining but people are so often so caught up in their lives that they don't stop and look at it from a different perspective. Even a moment taken just looking at it from another point of view can give one enough revelations to last a lifetime." She continued almost talking to herself, looking over the city her eyes seeming to take everything in at once.

Neo watched the patterns of the traffic in the city below silently running what this strange girl had said through his head.

"The world isn't black and white Neo…. Remember that it" She said out of nowhere.

Neo startled and turned to look at the girl "How…." His question to ask how she knew his name died on his lips as he found she had gone just as suddenly as she had appeared.

"Neo! Where've you been?" Asked Trinity coming up to him.

"I was…" Neo trailed off as he gestured to where the girl had been.

"…there was a girl… and she…." Neo tried to explain confused and then shook his head "Doesn't matter, has the meeting finished?"

"Yes everyone is returning to their exits. " Trinity replied in a tone that stated they had better leave too.

"Okay lets go" Neo said starting to walk back but as they walked back down the street Neo could have sworn he heard a whisper in the code of something not quite heard or seen. The best he could come up to describe it as was a ghostly melody.

* * *

The wind ruffled Nike's hair as she sat atop one of the ruined skyscrapers in the so-called real world, the black sky roiled above her head, turbulent, rumbling and lighting up with the continuous lighting storms that raged in it. She gazed out over devastated and desolate landscape, to Nike this place had an almost soothing quality, it sounded strange but for all its ruin Nike liked the desert of the real. Maybe it was because of the silence… that almost total silence that came with an almost dead world, the 'real' had an aura too. Maybe it was revelation within her but she liked the post apocalyptic setting and that almost ghost like feeling of knowing that billions of people once lived and died here.

She put a small flute to her lips and played a sad tune that seemed to touch deep into your heart, the tune carried unnaturally across the landscape, filling the world with its haunting melody that echoed through dead streets and tunnels almost giving the ghosts of the past form. Though few heard it, those that did would have its haunting melody forever burned into their memory.


End file.
